


Nightmares

by Aquien



Series: 94 Days of Drarry [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Curses, Despair, Established Relationship, HP: EWE, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Nightmares, Post-Hogwarts, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-08-09 10:52:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7798939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquien/pseuds/Aquien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco is lost and all there is, is darkness, mud and rain. And it's all so very, very quiet.</p><p>Warning for "weird angst"?</p><p>Now continued and no longer a one shot! Keeping it marked as part of my 94 days of Drarry collection though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As I sat down to write today, I wanted to write a really cute, fluffy fic. Thus, I have no idea how this fic happened - cute and fluff is no where to be found and if you want to be left feeling all "awww" with rosy hearts in your eyes you probably should choose another fic...
> 
> I ain't got the faintest clue about the rating.
> 
> Note: although this is a Drarry-fic, romance etc is not the genre. (Take the title literally.)
> 
> The prompt was "living nightmare".
> 
> ***
> 
> Note 9 Jan 2017: This one-shot is now continued. Keeping it a part of the my one-shot collection as a reminder from where it started though.

“Hey! Anyone there? Anyone?” my voice breaks on the last word and normally I’d be mortified if anyone had heard it. I don’t care now though. I just want someone to answer me. It’s so dark, everything is dark and damp and it smells funny. I wish I knew where I am. I wish I wasn’t so alone.

 

It feels like I’ve been here for an eternity, even though it’s probably not been even an hour yet. To think, that only an hour ago I was at the Manor, preparing to apparate out to meet up with Pansy for our scheduled luncheon. Instead of ending up at the apparation point in Diagon Alley, I ended up here though. Where ever “here” is.

 

I can’t stop the sob that escapes me. It’s humiliating, I pride myself in not having cried since that one time that I don’t want to think about. When Potter of all people had walked in on me. Father always told me that crying is a sign of weakness. He told me that Malfoy’s don’t cry. Still, I can’t help the tear that leaves my eye and slowly travels down my chin. What has happened? Where am I? Why can’t I find anyone else? Why can’t I hear anything other than myself breathing and moving around?

 

I stand up again, from the kneeling position on the ground that I slumped down in a while ago. The mud is slippery under my feet, and keeping upright is made even harder from the darkness. I reach out with my hands, trying to find something to steady myself against, or better even - something that will tell me where I am. There is nothing though. Only emptiness surrounds me.

 

I stumble forward a few steps, hands feeling around in the air but touching nothing. Slowly I walk forward - or at least I hope it’s forward, I have no way to know for certain. I know that I am moving, but nothing changes around me to give me any indication whether or not I actually make it anywhere. The darkness is still complete and I can detect no change in the muddy ground under my feet. The smell seems to be slowly dissipating though, but that’s probably just me getting used to it.

 

I wish I had my wand. I had it when I apparated, but when I landed here in the darkness, it was gone. I’ve been practicing casting wandless spells, but with limitless success. Now as I walk in the darkness I concentrate on that one spell that used to seem to insignificant to me, and now is the only one I want to cast. “Lumos,” I chant over and over again, trying to channel my magic to cast it without my wand. There’s not even a spark.

 

***

 

My legs are beyond tired, but I keep pushing forward. The ground is still muddy and the darkness seems to be without an end. With arms stretched out I have not yet touched anything. Not a tree, not a wall, nothing. Nor have I stumbled on any stones, bushes or sidewalks. I haven’t felt like I’ve been walking uphill nor downhill. I’ve reached down to touch the ground a couple of times. The only thing I feel is slippery, wet mud. That seems to be the only thing there is.

 

I think it’s been hours since I last shouted out for someone to hear me. I stopped as each time the disappointment at not getting an answer got harder to bear. There is no echo, my voice just goes out there in the quiet darkness. I imagine it traveling the grounds, the only sound this place have ever heard. I imagine it getting thinner and thinner as this world starved on sounds eats it up. I wish there was an echo. At least then I could hear something else than my own voice as it leaves me only to leave no track of having existed.

 

There is no sobs leaving me now. No tears running down my cheeks. I guess Father would be proud, but really I just don’t care. I only walk and walk in this endless sameness.

 

***

 

I fall down in the mud. My legs just won’t carry me any longer. I try to crawl forward as stopping feels like giving up. Stopping feels like dying. As long as I move forward I can tell myself that I am doing something. As long as I move I am alive in this nothingness. As long as I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, I won’t feel the gnawing hunger or the desperate dryness in my throat.

 

***

 

A distant part of me thinks it’s a good thing no one is here to see me as I lick the muddy ground, desperate to get some moisture on my tongue. The hunger is gone now, the only thing I know is thirst. I bury my face in the mud trying to suck up some water from the mud but end up choking on it instead. Gasping for air I roll over. I want to keep moving, but my limbs won’t collaborate anymore. I lay there on my back, wanting for it all to just be over.

 

They call me a coward. They don’t know the story behind my choices. I did what I did for survival. As they fought their battles, I fought mine.

 

With my dying strength, I still fight for my survival. Slytherins might be many things, but we aren’t quitters. We scheme and plan and manipulate to get our way. We don’t go into fights blindly, we go with a plan. We go in for the win. Giving up is not an option.

 

I try to draw a deeper breath, just to get the strength to turn around and make it forward. Who knows, maybe just a few steps from here there will be something. Some change in this endless hell that will take me away from here. My throat is too dry though and I end up coughing instead. I try to lift a hand to cover my mouth - Mother was always on me about remembering my manners, I guess not even hell can take away her teachings from me. My strength fails me though and my arm flops useless back to the ground.

 

As I close my eyes I’m dimly aware of contemplating the lack of change in darkness that action has. Eyes open or closed, there is nothing I can see.

 

***

 

I was sure I was dead. I was sure I had struggled till the bitter end of it all. Then I became aware again. There is water touching my lips, my face, my hands. Drops and drops of water. I open my eyes, but to my dismay there is still only darkness. The rain falls all around me though and I open my mouth to the sky, feeling it run down my throat. I drink and drink and laugh from the share joy of not being thirsty anymore.

 

When the thirst has left me, I drink the rain to fill my stomach. For a moment, I feel strengthened. Then, reality sets in. I sit on the ground in the downpour. I sharpen my ears, listening. I can hear the rain as it softly hits the ground, but nothing else. There is no wind, nor does the sound of the rain carry an echo with it. Like it was with my voice, it is like this place is eating up the sound of the drops hitting the ground.

 

Neither can I see the rain. I see no reflections in the drops of water around me. Feeling around me on the ground, I feel only the same mud as before. There is no puddles forming, nor is the mud getting detectably wetter than before. With my hands I dig a small hole in the ground, to make a puddle. When I reach down a moment later to check if it fills up, the hole is gone. There is only a flat surface of mud to be found.

 

Soon, the rain stops. Everything is now as it was before, only now I’m no longer thirsty. I struggle to get up on my feet. With no way of knowing what direction I came from, I start walking. I figure it doesn’t matter if I walk back to where I came from, or if I walk in circles. Nothing seems to matter. It’s not like I’m getting anywhere.

 

There really is no use in walking at all, but I just cannot give up.

 

***

 

The hunger returns first, then the thirst. I feel my strength slowly abandoning me, just like the last time. Just like the last time, I push forward for as long as I can. This time the rain starts the moment I fall down. I drink greedily, afterward wondering if there is any nutrition in this rain as well, as it seems to take away my hunger as well as my thirst.

 

***

 

The fifth time it starts to rain, I curse myself as I helplessly follows my instinct to drink. I cannot take this any longer, still I can’t resist drinking. I can’t stop my fight for survival.

 

I wish I had something tangible to fight. Instead the only thing I can do is push forward.

 

One foot in front of the other.

 

***

 

The only thing I know is that there is some plan and reason to this place. That’s the only explanation to why it always starts to rain the moment that I get to the brink of dying from thirst. I just don’t know what to do with this knowledge.

 

I can hardly remember anything else than this blackness. I try to think about my home, my friends and my family. They all seem so long gone to me now. The face of Mother remains clear the longest.

 

***

 

I’ve lost count of the times it’s rained when I realize I haven’t yet slept here in this place. Unless you count that time before the first rain, when I closed my eyes. I’m sure I have been here for weeks by now, but still I cannot remember sleeping. It must be weeks, I think, although time seems irrelevant here. Still, the body can survive for days without food or water, and it always takes me to the brink of death before the rain comes and restores me. So it must be weeks by now.

 

I lay down in the mud, determined to sleep. I close my eyes, but sleep isn’t even near. I feel beyond exhausted, but not sleepy. Stubbornly, I remain where I am. I will sleep.

 

***

 

When the thirst returns this time, I’m still laying in the mud. I haven’t slept though. As the thirst grows, I find I cannot remain still. I’m forced to get up and move, or the thirst become even more of a torture.

 

***

 

I don’t sleep here. Apparently there is something about this place that takes away my need for sleep. That is the second thing I learn about my own, personal hell.

 

I don’t know what to do with that knowledge either.

 

***

 

I haven’t talked to anyone for ages. At this point, I’m not sure if I’d even be able to produce words, given the opportunity. I tried, a while ago, to speak up into the darkness. The harsh sounds my throat made seemed too loud in my ears. There was no words in that sound though. I can here the words in my head, but I’ve been quiet for so long now that I appear to have lost the ability to produce them.

 

***

 

What is light? I try to remember. I feel my face with my fingers, trying to picture what I must look like, if there were light and I had a mirror to see myself in. I just cannot imagine the sight I must be.

 

***

 

Who am I?

 

One foot in front of the other.

 

There is mud on the ground.

 

All is quiet.

 

***

 

I breathe. I am.

 

What am I?

 

***

 

Rain. Wet.

 

***

 

One foot. Other foot.

 

Mud. Ground.

 

Wet.

 

***

 

Quiet. Dark. Wet.

 

***

 

Am I?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Four months, twelve days and thirteen hours. That was how long Harry had been sitting by Draco’s side now, holding his hand. People had come and gone, they had tried to get him to leave for a short while at least. They hadn’t succeeded. Harry slept sitting in his chair, never letting go of his lover’s hand._

 

_He tried not to think what Draco might be going through, trapped inside his own mind in a nightmarish reality conjured by the twisted mind of Jara Nordland. The witch had turned out to be one of those twisted “fans” of his, that thought she had helped him, making Draco first forget all about Harry’s even existing, and then trapping him like this. When caught, she had gone on and on about how she had saved Harry from being bound to a Death Eater._

 

_Harry had thought everyone had gotten over the chock of their “savior” falling in love with and then marrying Draco Malfoy, a confirmed (ex) Death Eater, but apparently he had been wrong. Jara had been sent to Azkaban but to no avail - she wouldn’t or couldn’t undo her curse. One month into Draco’s entrapment in his own mind, she had killed herself, ending all hope for any assistance from her._

 

_Hermione was of course doing her best, as was many others. As time moved on, there came other emergencies that needed to be dealt with and he started to get excuses as people was taken of Draco’s case and put to work on other things that was deemed to have more hope in succeeding. Soon, Hermione would be the only one left. Harry knew he could count on her, she wouldn’t give up. An unsolvable problem was to her like catnip to a cat._

 

_Still, even if - when - she one day would be able to break the curse, there was no telling what Harry would be getting back. What sort of nightmare Jara had trapped Draco in. His body might be cursed to regenerate, but what of his mind? Harry already knew he had been made to forget all about them, but that he could handle. He could remind Draco of who he was and what they had together. He was not so sure though, if Draco would have a mind to heal, even if they got him back._

 

_Still, Harry couldn’t leave. If he’d known Draco was only unaware, sleeping or unconscious, he might have been able to leave every now and then. As it was, he knew that that was not the case. He might not know the nature of the nightmare, but he knew it to be the worst kind of hell. The least he could do was be there, hold his hand. Even if Draco didn’t know it. He’d suffer, as the love of his life suffered._

 

_Together, alone. Each in their own, living nightmare._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as with Chapter One, I have no idea where this came from. I didn't plan on this. I didn't plan to write a continuation to this one. I just tried to get myself to write something, and wrote down the first thing that came to mind a short while later I realized I was writing a continuation to "Nightmares". So, like it or not, here it is.
> 
> I'll probably even have to continue this weirdness. Gee, where did this come from??

No matter how I try, I just can’t stop the tears from falling. Neither can I stop what I’m doing. With frozen fingers I keep digging. My fingers are already bleeding, they are starting to numb from the pain. It feels like I have been digging always, and I have a feeling that if I stop and think about it, then I will start to scream and never stop. So I keep digging. My tears are ice before the leave my cheeks and my lips are cracking up from the cold and the moisture.

 

“Do not think. Do not think. Just dig. Just dig. Do not think,” is the mantra I have been repeating to myself for what seems like a lifetime.

 

***

 

“Hey”, a hand suddenly touches my shoulder. I can’t let it disturb me. It is just a hallucination anyway. So I keep digging.

 

“Hey, Draco!” the voice insists, the hand shaking me, hard. I don’t care.

 

“Stop it! Draco, please,” the voice urges, but I keep ignoring it.

 

“Damn it, Draco!” as my name sounds in the frozen stillness, tinged with a note of desperation, I feel myself flinch, but I still can’t stop. Two hands are shaking me now, trying to turn me away from my work. I try to resist, but I can feel my strength failing me. To my chagrin, I’m turned around to face the bespectacled git. I try to fight but as I am forced to stop digging, it is like all the remnants of my strength leave at once. I fall down and to my great humiliation I can feel Potter catch me and as the scream I have been holding in breaks free Potter holds me close. As the torment runs through me, Potter doesn’t say a thing, he only holds me close, awkwardly stroking my back.

 

***

 

When I cannot scream any longer, I just sob, feeling broken. I don’t care anymore that it is Potter who cradles me up and carries me away somewhere. I just burrow closer, seeking the warmth of the other man. Potter still doesn’t say anything. He just keeps on walking, holding me close.

 

***

 

“Draco?” Potter’s voice sounds hesitant as he stops walking, carefully setting me down. “Where are we?”

 

“Potter,” I start weakly, trying to think of an insult, but finding that that one word is too much already for my broken voice to produce. Potter somehow seems to understand and together we sit down on the frozen ground. In this world that doesn’t make any sense, he then reaches out for me, drawing me close once more and holding on like he thinks I am a long lost love. With no strength to fight, I just let him.

 

“Draco,” Potter finally asks again. Instead of answering, I just nods in acknowledgment, waiting for the git to continue. “What do you remember? Do you know where you are?” I cannot help but find it sort of peculiar that the voice of my long time nemesis can sound so caring. For a moment, I try to imagine a reality where Potter doesn’t loath me, but that seems an impossibility. I shrug, but Potter is insistent with his question, urging me to think and answer.

 

I really try too. I remember Hogwarts, and the war. I remember Potter and the rest of the Golden Trio, all of them hating me. I remember my parents dying, I remember burying all my friends. My memory is full of flashes of caskets, all with different loved ones in them. They all died because of me, I know that and with every fiber of my being I try to resist thinking about it more close, but with Potter urging me to think, I can’t help it. They died because of my choices, because I failed. I cannot remember exactly what those choices were, or how they caused them all to die, but I know I am to blame.

 

I try not to think anymore, but a part of me can’t help but find it strange that I just cannot seem to remember one concrete thing that I actually did do after Hogwarts.

 

“How did you get here? Why were you digging in the ground?” Potter urges me on, trying to get me to speak my thoughts out loud. I still don’t answer the git, but his questions still makes me think further. Why was I digging? I had just known that I had to. I had just known that if I could dig deep enough, all those who died because of me, would be alive again. I never could dig deep enough though. I had dug and dug until the bones of my fingers had been bare, and then I had screamed and when I stopped screaming, my fingers had been whole again and I had continued digging. Dimly I remember something about walking before that. An endless walk in darkness, and then the darkness had become freezing light and instead of black everything had been bright light, blinding and hurting my unaccustomed eyes. Some time after that, the urge to dig had started.

 

I feel my mind falling apart. I try to think, why had I been digging? Where hadI been walking? Where am I? It feel like there is something missing, some pieces of a puzzle that would answer it all, but as I try to focus my thoughts on remembering it a blinding light goes through my brain and I scream again, as a pain burrows through my brain, burning all consciousness until all there is, is white, searing agony.

 

***

 

Weakly, I try to get up on my knees. My throat is hoarse from the screaming. My head throbs with pain. I look around. Potter is nowhere to be seen. Of course not. Why would he be? The lousy git probably just got his rocks off by torturing me anyway, and after seeing me fall apart he had gotten his laughs and left. Shakily, I stand up and look around. Dune after dune of sand is all I can see. The sun high in the sky is already burning my fair skin.

 

Why am I here? How have I gotten here? Potter. Potter had pranked me! That holier-than-thou prick, who did he think he was? I’ll show him yet! First though, I’ll have to find shelter, before the sun burns me up. Feeling determined now, I pick a direction and start to walk. I am sure that once I get up on that first dune, I’ll see some sign of life. Potter might be a lousy git, but he is one of the “good guys” after all. No way he would leave me out of helps reach. Getting the help would probably require some humiliation on my part, but I’ll take that out on Potter later, somehow.

 

There will be help on that other side of the dune. There just had to be.

 

*********

 

_ “No!” Harry came to, screaming. He was laying beside Draco, holding his hand. Hermione was standing beside them, looking exhausted. Seeing Harry come to, but Draco still not stirring, she slumped down in a nearby chair. _

 

_ “It didn’t work,” she stated in a tired voice. _

 

_ “It did! I mean, I was there, just like you said. Oh, ‘Mione, it was terrible! It was…” _

 

_ “What happened, Harry? If you got in, if you reached him..?” Hermione interrupted his memories of the hell that Draco was living in. As tears welled up in his eyes, he tried to focus, tried to hold on to a small hope that they might be able to try again, once they figured out what went wrong. _

 

_ “Yeah, I reached him. He didn’t seem to remember much though. He just…” Harry drew a deep breath, steading himself before getting back on track. “I asked him, just as you told me to, if he remembered getting there, where he was and what he was doing. Just like you told me to. I tried to trigger his memories. I tried. Just like you… Just like… I tried to, you told me to do that, why didn’t it work, ‘Mione?” he felt himself slipping into hysteria. They had been so close to getting Draco back. He just knew it! Why hadn’t it worked? He felt Hermione beside him, a calming presence.  _

 

_ “Harry, you did right. Just as you were supposed to. You didn’t do anything wrong. There must’ve been something I didn’t think of. Focus a little while longer Harry. What happened when you tried to trigger his memories?” Harry looked up at his friend. She looked as tired as he felt. Everyone else had given up years ago. She had been the only one struggling on to find something to help Draco. Something to help him. He didn’t know everything she had sacrificed, but had a feeling it was even more than she had let slip. He knew Ron had found another. He knew she had said no to countless of one of a time career-opportunities. Still, he knew he would never ask her to stop trying. He had to get Draco back. With that in mind, he described the agonizing scream Draco had let out when faced with Harry’s questions. The scream that had been at first deafening and that then had seemed to make everything explode but in reality it had just thrown Harry out from Draco’s mind. Leaving Draco still trapped in the curse and Harry here, living but not alive. _

 

_ “It must’ve been some sort of defense. That witch thought of everything! To think what she could have achieved if she had only focused her knowledge on something good!” Hermione’s frustration could almost be physically felt in the air. Drawing a deep breath, she put a hand on Harry’s forehead, before handing him the potion that would help him sleep beside his lover. As Harry drifted away, he could hear her voice. _

 

_ “Rest now, Harry. I’ll hit the books. I’ll figure it out. Then we’ll try again. I promise you, I’ll figure this out, even if it’s the last thing I’ll do.” _


End file.
